
The focus on social justice and reservation during the last two months of Lok Sabha poll campaign ostensibly led to the BJP’s tally of reserved seats being reduced to 55 from its previous 77 – a total of 131 constituencies are reserved for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes across the country.
The BJP lost 19 SC seats which it held across Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Haryana, Karnataka, Bihar, Punjab and West Bengal. Additionally, it lost 10 ST seats across Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Rajasthan and West Bengal. The Congress captured 12 of these SC seats and seven of these ST seats from the BJP.